marchofprogress

Sorry if this is in some other thread already (since just about everything I post seems to be - sorry mods!), but I was just on my way to HHN when it dawned on me that I might only be in the park for five minutes or something. I thought I'd ask the experts. Maybe get a ProTip. : How much time do you budget between pulling in to the parking lot line (i.e. arriving at Universal) and getting into the park? Obviously this is hugely variable, so I'll put some conditions on it: 1- Off-peak night (you can answer for on-peak night anyway if you'd like, just to make the thread more comprehensive) 2- Assume nothing out of the ordinary happens (ever gotten stuck behind someone at the metal detector who had a gun? I have.) 3- Broken down into two hour blocks (6-8, since 8 is when parking goes down and they get a little rush, then 8-10, since after 10 it's probably just FFPers going, then 10-12, when it's probably just crazy FFPs going) I've never showed up after 830ish so I don't know. For the record: up until 8 I budget about 45-60 min, around 8 I add another 15. I break it down like this: Parking line - parking : 15-20 walking from garage, through security, etc, to UniGate - 30 Getting in to park from UniGate: 5-10 On a peak night I don't even have enough info to guess. I've only been there on peak night one time and it was a horrible experience that I'll never do again. I still remember though::: Parking line - parking : ~1:30 Walking from garage, through security, etc to Unigate: combined with getting in to park vvvv Getting in to park from UniGate: ~2:30 That was a Saturday in 2007, second or third week of October. It was so bad that my friends will never go again, even after I ranted and raved about 08 (still my favorite year). One of them (there were 5 of us) won't go even if I buy his ticket for him. I had the good sense to tell them we needed to leave early.. Like... REALLY early.. The were complaining that the event doesn't start til 6:30 the whole time and I just had to keep telling them "ttruuussttt meeeee its gonna be baaaddddd" ...We got to the parking line around 4 and got in around 8. We saw two houses (Freddy and The Thing), a couple random clowns wandering around ("The whole park is a scarezone - our seven scary clowns will make you afraid to GO TO THE BATHROOM!"), and that's it. And both house lines were sixty three hours long. So peak nights I don't know about; I just assume that's par. But it's Thursday. Not peak night. So the way I did the math I figured I'd arrive at 10 and I could be in line for one of the houses by maybe 11:15, and by the time I got out, that would be all I'd get to do. That'd be fine with me if gas wasn't twelve thousand dollars a gallon (I live in Altamonte - close, but not next door). What do you all think? Would you have made the same choice if you were going to pull into the parking line at 10 and decided it wasn't worth it?

1- This is the reason I snipped out your rant too: : People get their faces licked all the time, what's so special about that? 2- The extra 7 don't count, because I am a committed solipsist and you didn't exist before you were interacting with me directly .... That's simple logic. And it's in the bible. Read your bible. 3 Couldn't you just delete the post? OMG IS THERE NO WAY TO DELETE POSTS? Like how there's no way to make a FB or Myspace account die? You don't kill them - you just make them undead! .... I say we need a wooden stake. We can use my stake.... We'll use your monitor. 4- You replying to yourself would be the only thing on this whole post that was anything close to 'ridiculous.' Thank you for keeping this a ridiculous-free zone. 5- ::::exhales deeply:::::: Thanks, jeez, way to wait like two months! That tantrum almost killed me! YOU ARE INSENSITIVE. 1- RE: Miniatures : ::stares at you with empty dead shark-eyes:: :::WALL-E voice::: Wall with hole? 2- I think those Lady Luck masks are anti-everything. So far all the HHN masks I've seen this year have been kinda lame. Which is why they Very anti-monomania. I'm not even gonna try to get pictures. And I *really want* pictures of those damn card houses and other props!! But ... human sardine = lame. I think they put the stuff in Sting Alley that they don't want you to take pictures of, since, you know, you can't lift your arms with that many people around. 3- OMG BERENIECE (your spelling's off, btw). Is that not the most horrible thing ever written? Imagine reading it in the 1830s!? I could look up an exact date on WP. I even have WP open in my WP browser that lives on the other screen all the time. It's its permanent address - gets its mail there and everything. Rarely goes on vacation. Some of my Huge Circle Of Friends occasionally ask me what is in the WP browser at the moment, just to see what kind of crazy nonsense I'm learning about. But no, no Bereniece. I would be totally satisfied with a set of those novelty chattering teeth. True Poe Fans would've understood the reference, and the others would just chalk it up to Poe going mad. You'd really be surprised what kind of nonsense you can get away with if people just think you're mad . . . Also, I may be wrong, and I'm listing this for posterity (since I think I'm going to HHN after I post this and I'm gonna try to see Poe).. But... I think the POE house references: I think between those (which I consider pretty much all requirements of a Poe house where the non-hardcore Poe fans know what room they're in) and Poe's own life, that covers the 10 rooms. They're all still 10 rooms right? Hm... Oh and also, I will award - and this is unprecedented - Two Pieces of the Triforce to the HHN A&D team if . 1- Re: the army : I. . . .guess so? I don't know - it seemed to me like the other minions had 2 minions a piece and there were at LEAST 90 scareactors-with-the-black-and-white-masks-and-medieval-weaponry....Wait, one of them had a chainsaw?? Well I am ignoring that to make my comment about medieval weaponry still work as a reference:) What? Maybe I mean medieval like .. from Pulp Fiction! They didn't have pliers or blow torches back then either!! Maybe Ill aks one of them what their deal is. They usually don't respond to "speech" though. 2- I don't get what's going on with any of them except gluttony, pride, and greed's minions. Or at least it's not as obvious. Gluttony's usually eating a giant animal part and covered in vomit (not a way to go with selling giant animal parts, Uni! ...... though I still want one!), Pride is wearing the ugliest mask ever and looking at herself in a broken mirror, and the greed minion has a whole bunch of dolla-dolla-bills-yall stuck in his mouth (when he coughs he MAKES IT RAIN)... But other than that... Wtf. Can I say wtf here? If not, wtb (what the butt). 3- Any creature - male, female, alive, dead, mortal, immortal, made of rice, it doesn't matter - who is Omnipresent in Sting Alley during October and a little bit of September is not a creature I have any fear of whatsoever. It's just so easy to avoid Sting Alley. I've always wondered why Sting Alley was even there at all . . But that's another story. 4- The 2,358 + 500 Lady Lucks following us (I include the ugly ones on the ground in Sting Alley but not the pretty ones in the stairwells) : YES @ THIS. I thought Uni was going to go balls-out (can I say 'balls-out" here? It's what I mean!) with the abstraction this year that they so horribly dropped the ball on last year (IMO). In that case, everything in the park would be tainted with choice everywhere to the point where I'd be whining about that. I mean even Uni's own literature says something about choosing your path in Sting Alley .... WHAT PATH? WHAT CHOICE? It's an open area as big as my apartment; where am I gonna go? Anyway it seems to me like they went halfway with that abstraction plan then just gave up on it. There's temptation by a beautiful woman that can get you killed (i.e., in 7), theres the choice involved with a Maze (which I think is very cool - I'm even willing to accept this somewhat rinkydink scarezone as cool just based on the concept), but that's about it. Instead they tried to make her a real person? That don't make'a no sense. How does she get ugly? I think that was a bad move. I think Lady Luck The Temptress should always be beautiful. The ugly Ladies of Sting Alley (you know, the ones wearing the masks from Pride in the 7 zone) don't tempt me to do anything except find out what they suggest and do not-that. So yeah she's omnipresent but. Meh. As I said above I think they're pretty much all kind of a stretch, except the two that have props (Pride = mirror Gluttony = food - I can get behind that). They missed a huge opportunity otherwise. Examples, you say? SURE! But first, some background . . .Many Judeo-Christian belief systems (especially the Catholic Church) divide sins into two categories: the venial sins (minor), and the mortal sins (major). Those two categories are divided based on whether they are forgivable or not in .... 1 John I believe... Anyway, the minor sins, you can be forgiven for, because the soul is merely weakened...The major sins result in damnation. The reason they're called "mortal" is because they supposedly sever one's connection with God : the soul dies from that separation. The Seven Deadly Sins (I'll call them SDS from here) are not a third category - they can be either major or minor. They are called "Deadly" because they are self-reinforcing: the more you do, the more you will do, eventually leading to a major sin (if one hadn't been committed already). They are potentially Deadly to the soul. The SDS didn't come from the bible directly like a lot of people think - at least not the way we talk about them today. The bible comes close. King Solomon says something close in the Book of Proverbs, Chapter 6 (or 5..?), which is a bunch of warnings. Solomon gives a list of things God hates.. But the list is body parts committing sins, rather than the sins themselves. So instead of lying, he says "a lying tongue" etc. (that's the only one I remember offhand). Anyway the list is basically lying, becoming evil, pride, bearing false witness, making evil plans, instigating violence, and destroying innocence. In the New Testament, the book Galatians gives a list of sins that's ...15 long? ... I'm actually going to look this one up. Galatians 5:19-21: "Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impunity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." There were a few more times lists were given, and combined, and etc. Around 600AD the Pope wrote the first SDS list..... None of this quite matters though. The SDS as most of us know it today comes from Dante's Divine Comedy: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride. Embodying these depends on knowing what they are, and in Dante's time (and ours), they were acts of excess. But they were all derived from other writings and have nuances that could have been exploited in this zone. To wit: 1- Lust: This wasn't always about just LUST the way we think of it today (impure sexual thoughts, etc.). Aristotle's idea of Lust was included in his definition of Love: excessive love of other people was a sin because it put something else before God. Even in Inferno, Lust is a manifestation of something else entirely: a lack of self control. Dante has them blowing around in wind. The excessive love of other people could've been shown by Lust never staying on her own platform, always running over to others and not leaving them alone. 2- Gluttony: This isn't supposed to be necessarily food-related - it's another sin of self-control, and another one that has a biblical basis: the idea is that excessive consumption of something necessarily means taking it from the needy. I won't bother discussing an example for the zone here because I think the one they have works. In Inferno, they lie around in icy rain sightless and deaf, symbolic of their selfish and empty lives. 3- Greed also doesn't necessarily refer to just wanting money. It's wanting personal gain at any cost. This leads to a lot of the more serious sins in Inferno (c.f., Judas being chewed up by the devil for all eternity). Inferno has two types of Greedy sinners: people who are misers/hoarders and people who squandered. They joust eternally.In the zone, Greed could continually steal things from the other stages. 4- Sloth is interpreted today as laziness. It's supposed to be closer to wasting one's (God-given) gifts. Sloth could have had ... I don't know.. a bunch of half-finished paintings hanging around as she sleeps...Dante actually puts these souls in Purgatory.. 5- Wrath includes vengeance as well as rage. Revenge and spite, and also Hate. These are against the idea of loving everybody. Suicide is an act of Wrath. Dante has the wrathful fighting each other in the River Styx. Later on, when discussing "violence," he turned Suicides into trees. Perhaps the Wrath girl, instead of having random blood everywhere, could be a suicide? 7- Envy is insatiable desire for other people's stuff, directly against one of the Ten Commandments. The whole "grass is better on the other side" idea could maybe make Envy in the scare zone try to take the other girls stages? 8 - Pride is actually the most serious sin in most historical description because it implies competition with God (Lucifer's fall = pride). They handle Pride pretty well, I think, though I'd like to see the pride girl not ever acknowledge anybody else. Self-absorption. I got lazier as the list went on (especially re: Dante, since I was just including him for fun off the top of my head and would have to actually look up the rest). The point is -there's tons of things to draw from. Oh, and if you're going to use Dante's list, use his hell - The Ninth Circle is actually ICE not fire..... At lowest part, the center of hell, (people who committed treachery against God personally), is the Devil, frozen waist deep, three-headed and weeping from all six eyes. Now THAT would've been awesome to see in the scarezone. Now I shall go to HHN for .. . like ... an hour!

I don't remember the Catacombs so well. Weren't the Plague Doctors just wearing those masks that ... plague doctors used to wear? The bird-looking ones?

I was totally, completely 100% serious. I'd love to see those posts as well.

B. .. but ... But that's when I'm HHNing!

Wouldnt it be spiffy if we planned chat sessions in advance? Every time I go there it's just me. Wahh!

The vocabulary collector in me feels like a ... . uhm... like... a... you know.... BAD when I refer to the occurrences at HHN as "scares" because most of them are "startles" I think. I get more "scared" by the environments most of the time, and have been legitimately "scared" at HHN maybe half a dozen times ever. Every time it was in a house, though, so it helped develop my criteria: a proper scare is when my flight response is in Full Effect, ya'll, and all I want to do is get the hell out of the house as soon as possible. I just get tunnel vision and in some cases become the jerk that pushes from behind (sorry!). That big scare in the Freddy house's mirror room made me completely unaware that I walked through the boiler room after. For the most part, people popping out looking scary and just being like 'boo' doesn't do anything but startle me, and I get startled when I drop something. Does anyone know/care what I'm talking about?

At one of the previous HHNs I saw a guy on stilts dressed as a tree, leaning against a tree. I saw him scare this one girl, whose response was to fall down on the ground immediately (ie, it was a reflex). It got me thinking about evolution... That is, I think, something that can't really fit into evolutionary development because if an animal did that it would be Food. There are lots of animals that play dead, and there's even a species of goat that does the same thing when threatened: they just fall down. Only thing is, she was screaming, so ... Not playing dead. Lots of other examples defy evolution.... But then when me and my Lady Friend went Sunday she actually shrieked a little at one point (read my ridiculously long review for details). I didn't think anybody who was sober and not totally nuts would scream. While her sanity is questionable, she definitely wasn't drunk. And that, too, was entirely reflex. It made me think that I can't conceive of any circumstance at all which involves me screaming like that. So I asked all my millions/half dozen friends if they've ever been to HHN and screamed, or if they could see it happening under *any* circumstance. All girls said yes, all guys said no. I think I can verify that from my own personal observations : I don't think I've ever heard a guy scream at HHN. I certainly haven't. I figure maybe its an evolutionary thing, like ... females scream to get help. Each scare/startle ignites our fight or flight instinct. I think screaming is the ultimate in flight - desire to run away so strong that the person is glued to the spot and instead screams. THEN I realized that I would be infinitely more likely to fight than fly in nearly all cases. I get the instinct to push/punch scareactors all the time ... I never have done either but still. Never close to screaming. And I asked my giant circle of friends again and all the guys agreed, all the girls disagreed. This is interesting to me, and I figured You People who are also obsessed with HHN may have some insight. Thoughts? What's the strangest response you've seen/had in response to a scare/startle, from an evolutionary standpoint or otherwise ? Mine's definitely the girl falling down on the ground screaming - from both perspectives.

Man, it must cost a *fortune* to keep rebuilding those buildings and knocking them back down every night. They spare no expense. Seriously though - can acid rain do that to those buildings?

No. Disagree. Cop's logic was that I wasn't allowed my buh and he can demand I throw it out because Uni is a private property. Therefore, no arrest for public drinking. Not in public. Also the cop didn't have to be such a hardass about it ... He could've just said "fine finish it make it quick" and I'd be trashing an empty bottle before the sentence was over. I'm not the guy he needs to be after. And also, if you want to know why I call it "buh" you can blame 50 cent: "You can find me in the cluh / bottle fulla buh" .. Uh, you can find drunk people "around the world" in the real world too. When that stupid gas ball you Humans call the sun finally disappears, if I go into a convenience store I always operate under the reasonable assumption that there's a 71% chance there's some drunk in there being drunk. In fact, I bet if you took any random selection of people as big as the crowd at HHN on a Friday night, the amount of drunks would be about the same. I stand by my commitment to be amused by them. The only other choice is to flip out and turn into Michael Douglas in Falling Down. .... Or perhaps just turn into Michael Douglass.

These points: 1 - Your logic is broken. If ppl will want to take pictures with the hotties no matter what, it stands to reason that height will not make a difference. 2 - I personally feel like Sting Alley is crowded even if I'm in there alone with no scareactors or guests. 3 - Maybe Uni is setting something up, like how last year they suddenly added the icongasm in Sting Alley at the last minute. Maybe on the last day the Ladies will ... be.. juggling. Or something. Maybe hurling insults at everybody all night like the Hookah Smoking Caterpillar in 08.

Thanks for being entertained with me. Some people have a moral compass that tells them what's right and what's wrong, but my compass must have some of its wires crossed or the coal I put in its steam engine isn't good enough (I just can't bring myself to pay the extra two cents for Premium!). My screwy compass just continually points in the direction of what amuses me more. It is great when other people are on board. MINIATURES? Where?! I can't even think of where they .. *would* be. First off, OH YEAH? WELL I'D GO THROUGH IT 37 MORE TIMES! Sorry, competitive streak..that I only have on the internet..... about completely insignificant things... As above thanks for being entertained - you should hear the rest of the nonsense that goes on in my head. Actually there's quite a bit of that nonsense posted various places here. The secret to not getting pushed in line is to be built out of bricks like me. If someone pushes me more than 3 times - or just one time if it was on purpose - I bark at them. That usually Wins. There *were* scareactors - I'd say that the reason I missed them was probably out of being mesmerized by the house's design ... So various scareactors jumped out of places and I'd crook my head to see what the house looks like behind them:) A long-time stalker of the forums in general, or of me? Because that's really creepy, to just watch the forums in general. If you wish to read more of my blahblah it's all over these forums. I have lots of time on my hands and I don't interact with lots of other Humans. So I get on the internet and shoot lots of arrows in the sky and put some messages in bottles and sees what happens. Progress is always marching on - Taco Bell is a prime example. Do you see how often they come up with new ways to mix four ingredients?! That's amazing! That's innovative! That's mathematically impossible! THAT. Is progress. How come people on forums always think I'm a troll when I'm only posting topical stuff? And putting effort into it! If I were a troll I'd just be like "HHN IS POO! LOL!" ... I'd say a fifty-one page review of just my first visit is pretty topical and required too much effort for a trollytroll. In short, I'm going to hold my breath until you take that back!! You're driving away customers!! :::starts holding breath:::

That = Hawthorn(e) effect. And there's a HOUSE with that name in it this year! Coincidence? Pffsh, hardly!

I award you one Piece of the Triforce for "annoyed spouses and lady friends." May the way of the hero lead to the Triforce!

Revolvers at dawn. I'll bring my silver bullets, wolfy. ::narrows eyes::

YES. Agree. ::pushes agree button:: That's right along with what I was saying about how she should tie into her own theme: she should tempt you to enter (from outside sting alley, we saw a masked Lady Luck jumping out from behind the wall boo-ing people - the xxxHOTTxxx Lady Luck was up in the stratosphere where she was barely visible. That wasn't tempting at all. And the choice thing - they *say* that it's all about choices - why do they just not implement that in any way? Not that they really could . . . Sting Alley is only the size of a postage stamp. But we didn't even make the choice to go in. Just saw the sillymasked Lady Luck ROARING at people and it was pretty simple "does not want" logic. Poor Lady Luck. She deserved so much more. I think this scarezone will not only be redeemed, but will earn a piece of the Triforce if they get minions dressed like Bob Barker to hang out next to the wheel, rambling about removing animals' genitals and the Showcase Showdown, except it would have to be called something Scary like ... the... Scarecase Scaredown. Then everybody who spins the wheel can be really old, weak, and way too enthusiastic. Periodically the Bob Barker minion would have to spin the wheel manually back to the starting value, tell the guest to spin again and make it a full spin, all the while thoughtbubbleo0O{Stupid human. Hate human. Barker smash. Barker ... Barker... Barker neuter....) I don't know about you, but that would make me at once creeped out, nostalgic AND uncomfortable.

On my way in to the park, my Lady Friend and I had to immediately throw our beers in the trash (we got some Affordable Beverages at a local gas station while killing time waiting for cheap parking). The security guard not only wouldn't let us finish them off, but he wouldn't let us walk off with them in the direction we came (i.e., out). He essentially said we needed to throw them in the trash or he was going to call OPD. And he also carded us (what the butt -- sorry for the offensive language). Once you get in to the park and you're paying 83 dollars for a bottle of beer, I think it's actually pretty self-limiting. . . The people who get drunk off the drinks they serve at HHN are going to be drunk somehow no matter what. People are ludicrously creative when it comes to Habits... Not to mention that set and setting are way more important than actual alcohol consumption. Time and time again, it's been proven that if you give people "beer" in huge quantities they will get "drunk" even when the "beer" is nonalcoholic. It's a group dynamic thing and an expectation thing. UCF's psych department actually has a lab on campus devoted to research into that - it's called the SURG lab. So even if they didn't smuggle something in it wouldn't matter. Add to that the fact that people equate the price of the drink with the amount of alcohol it contains (again regardless of what is objectively True) and you've got yourself a drunken festivity! You're going to have drunks at HHN. Every year. All the time. Every night. All night. That's just the way it is - people like to get drunk at HHN and have a good time. And you know what? Me in my Ivory Tower with my Frequent Fear Pass, I personally enjoy them. Nobody wants to watch someone puke. That's totally gross..... But.... Well... I can pretty much guarantee you it was a helluva lot worse for the puker. They'll wake up the next day almost certainly hung over (you lose quite a bit of water puking..) but also looking like a total jackass. Then you get to live with that. Yeah drunks can be loud and crazy, but Humans can be loud and crazy. You don't need to give those animals liquor. Now then . . . . The part that really gets me is the part about the cars swerving out of the garage, because I've seen that too pretty much every night I've ever gone to HHN. Which is a lot of nights. .... I think that maybe Mr. "If you leave the park with your beer I'm calling the cops and you'll be charged with .... of-age drinking!" security guard should check people on the way *out* of the park.... Let's get some money together, start a taxi service, and set up a contract with Universal to shuttle their drunks home anywhere in Orlando for free!

I've been waiting til I had time to bite this worm properly. Now here goes. Thing is . . . I think you're looking at it backwards, doc. I think you're commenting on the frequency of "b=c" while ignoring the frequency of "a=b" To put it in a more concrete way, those movies - and those houses - are playing on really primal, visceral, instinctual fears. The most successful horror films - by any measure - are all tapping into a Jungian fear-provoking archetype. They're called elemental fears. I could wax philosophical about Jung until my computer becomes obsolete, but just take your examples. You're talking about a fear of: 1- (Skoolhouse) the corruption/loss of innocence - especially when it comes to children 2- (House of 1000 Corpses) Helplessness in the face of a horrible and painful impending fate that seems entirely unavoidable because its inflicter is a juggernaut or a human being operating outside the capacity for reason. Also there's the fear of being overwhelmed and outnumbered (it's part of why RZ chose that title for the movie). In this case in particular (not so much in Hostel, which I'll get into in a second) there's also the fear of beings to whom human life means nothing (the opposite side of the "sanctity of life" belief most of us are supposedly born with) 3- (Hostel) Really the same as #2 except in this case the human being inflicting the torture is not totally Out To Lunch but motivated entirely by sadism, which looks like malice from the opposite end of the lens (ie, to the people trapped in the situation). It also has the 'outnumbered' fear but in a different way: if you tried to escape from the Hostel, you're likely to be stopped by customers and staff alike..So there's also that added element of fear of the Monolith - that there's this secret network you're entrenched in trying to fight out of and it's way bigger and stronger than you.... 4- (the Thing) Sheesh, take your pick: invasion of the body, loss of control, loss of identity, fear of the Other, claustrophobia, fear that your friends/people you think you know and have come to rely upon are actually quite different than they seem and, in some cases, have extreme malice, and on and on.... oh, and PARANOIA. I can list a million examples of all of those. . . 1- The Exorcist right back to the Garden of Eden (which was a terrifying story in its time). Children of the Corn. The Twilight Zone episode where the kid whisks people away to the corn field. There's actually Jungian connections between this fear and corn, but I won't get into that. 2 - Body Collectors, anyone? Chainsaw Drill Team (isn't it just so much scarier when there's several of them on you at once?) , Texas Chainsaw Massacre (remember the scene where the girl lands in the room full of bones?). This is the fear modern zombies touch on; it wasn't always like that (more on that in a second). Same goes for most 'modernized' horror creatures. There's this image of vampires as just bloodthirsty conscienceless creatures, same with werewolves and others - these used to be tragic figures made all the more tragic because of the horrific and shocking nature of their Evil Deeds. We've just become desensitized to it. 3- Sadism is really all you needed in a horror villain in the 80s. Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, Leatherface, etc. all have motivations in their stories, but the motivation doesn't really matter and almost sounds like an afterthought in many cases. It's hard to compare any movies to Hostel because Hostel is on the edge of a newish trend in horror cinema: the so-called torture porn movies. Saw movies fit in there even though, again, there's some vague story involved. The interesting thing about the torture porn movies is how they turn it around: the twist is that the *audience* are the sadists in those films. As far as the fear of the monolith, that can be interpreted any number of ways. There's plenty of Paranoia thrillers out there... And that's a main fear HHN plays with. When you step into a house/scarezone you are not in your world any more. And They are out to Get You. 4- I could list a million examples of every one of those fears, but I'll stick with one: zombies. George Romero himself claimed that what scares him the most out of anything is "the neighbors" - that is what the original Night of the Living Dead was about (metaphorically, of course). Zombies have turned into something else entirely over the years and have taken on a lot of allegorical meanings, functioning as everything from a protest against consumerism (Dawn of the Dead) to an imagining of a viral outbreak (28 Days Later). The fear that people you've come to trust have turned into something or have been something else all along is common as well... It's always been one of the favorite topics to explore in zombie movies, all the way back to NotLD when the mother is attacked by her daughter with a trowel. Ditto all the other fears I listed and all the other ones present in The Thing.... Paranoia is an especially common one. How many movies are *just* about paranoia - nothing else? It's implemented on some level in nearly every horror/thriller film I can think of. NotLD hits on the bulk of all the fears I've mentioned (even outside of fears explored in The Thing), as does The Exorcist, The Shining, Nightmare on Elm Street, etc. etc. etc. etc. The importance of elemental fears can't be overstated. What can easily be overstated is their diversity: these fears all boil down to the same basic fears, and they are evolutionary and biological. Fear of Pain is a great example. A lot of those fears fall under the umbrella of "Fear of Pain" - you could probably fit them all in that category if you define Pain broadly enough. Our biological fight-or-flight response is triggered when we're confronted by a situation where we feel we are in danger. Our autonomous nervous system changes our machinery. Blood moves around the body to prepare us. Our pupils change size. Our heart beats faster. All of these physiological responses are believed to be evolved characteristics, and it makes sense if you think about it for a moment. Of course natural selection is going to weed out the ones who aren't prepared to meet fear with a fight or a flight over the course of generations and generations. Believe it or not, human beings are actually pretty awesome hunters/survivors. . . It's because of elemental fears we've had forever. Elemental fears are what makes horror effective. Without it, you have comedy. If you're posting on the HHN boards, there's a reasonable chance you're into watching crap horror movies for kicks - think of the last horror movie you saw that wasn't at all scary, but may actually have been funny. Odds are pretty good the lack of elemental fear (or poor execution thereof) is the reason. It's never *just* bad acting. It's never *just* a bad script. It's never *just* cheesy effects. In fact, you can handicap a horror movie with just about as many kisses of death you can think of that would destroy any other kind of film, but if the elemental fear is there it will survive. Example: Paranormal Activity. I don't know about you but I think everything about this film was atrocious. The acting, writing, direction, pacing, plot, explanation, etc. - all horrible. If not horrible, at least not-Great. But still a *very* creepy movie. Why? Well, if you're like anybody else I've talked to about it, you're already thinking of the one scene that makes the movie: Now how low-tech is that? But how creepy? It plays off an elemental fear, and it makes a huge splash. So huge that it can afford to have bad Everything. As one final point, I'd like to point out a fact to you: in the United States, the sale of ice cream and the homicide rate are positively correlated at a highly significant level. So significant, in fact, that if you analyzed the statistics thoroughly, the findings would be statistically significant enough that they'd be worthy of publication and would actually come almost as close as a correlation can get to causation. Correlation, however, never means causation. There's reasons for that, and one of them is the reason for this strange factoid. It's called a spurious relationship - the sale of ice cream and the homicide rate are strongly correlated to each other, but in reality they are both *dependent variables* to an entirely different independent variable - outdoor temperatures, in this case. Ice cream sales and the homicide rate go up when the temperature goes up, but that doesn't mean they're related to each other at all..... So, in short, you are half-right. While it is correct that HHN frequently includes houses that resemble movies, it is also correct to say that movies frequently resemble other movies, or even that houses resemble other houses, and so forth. Truth is that they're all playing off the same core set of fears. And it's actually a very small list. There are certainly an enormous number of phobias, but when you're talking about actual elemental, visceral fears, the list is short - if it weren't a short list, HHN would never work because there wouldn't be enough people who share the same fears. Just think of phobias. Billy Bob Thornton has a phobia that makes him respond to antique furniture with fear. A house full of antique furniture would terrify him . . . . But, uh, not me. On the other hand, if you set up a house where there's people being brutally murdered, the walls are covered in blood, there are piles of bones everywhere, and there is a high frequency of confrontation by big scary guys with chainsaws . . . . You're playing off people's elemental fear; it's written in our DNA to have that provoke our fear response. Does it really matter if it's the Texas Chainsaw house or the eponymous Hostel ?

One of those doctors got All Up In My Grill all of a sudden and shouted "SAY HER NAME!!" then calmly walked back to where he was standing before doing that. A lot of times they freak me out more when they're walking away. To me, that's more closely in line with the Madness I've seen in real life ... Perfectly docile, then suddenly screaming some gibberish. Then perfectly docile again, like nothing ever happened. I thought of Heroin Bob from SLC Punk at that moment : "I hate doctors, man!!" Even as bad as everyone said Mary's house was, that was the biggest scare I got that year. Really one of the best I've ever gotten . . . Because 1) it felt real - if that guy suddenly flipped out while at work, that would be exactly how it would happen and exactly how it would look to me and 2) he had 100 pounds and probably 6 inches on me, and I'm a pretty big dude. In other words, if he did in fact snap at that moment and decide that I would be a worthy target for hostility, it was going to be a messy fight I'd probably not win. Luckily, I am Quick Thinker, Smoove Talker, so I was able to respond. Guess what I said? I said "no..." But you know what? I still wonder what would've happened if I did say her name . . . . .

I was freaked out by the Heads room in the Hallow for an entirely different reason: I streamlined it to the sidelines. The people I was with were like "OMG PUSHING HEADS OUT OF THE WAY HORROR!" and I was like "wh...ohhhhh, yeah, I remember that, I think..." Hours later it was like ... Wow am I that desensitized? The part that freaked me out about the heads was that they were covered in goop. Severed human heads, though? No problem! Just keep that Vaseline away from me!

D . . . Does this mean we'll have to fight to the death? : (

I just want to grab this thread and shake it until an apple falls out!!

I must post Respeck for one of the random dudes that walks around just outside of the 7 zone. . . The guys in masks with mohawks carrying medieval weaponry for some reason. In particular, Respeck to the one who was on the other half of this exchange: Scareactor walks up Me: "You're all alone - where's the rest of your troop?" (while obviously surrounded by five hundred others in the same costume) Scareactor looks around Scareactor makes point-in-circle-at-everyone/are-you-serious gesture That was very amusing to me. OH, and also, Respeck to the . You, sir/madam. You.

I thought the idea behind this zone and having lots of Lady Lucks was that she's supposed to be omnipresent and shapeshifting, so each iteration would look like it came out of a different place or time. Then that kinda makes sense. But ... They're all wearing the same dress. Of course, some of the greatest scares in HHN history have come from something like this. Like when the Three Jasons bounced people down that one hallway for a TRIPLE SCARE BONUS +10000! In this case, though - and I apologize in advance for my language, since I know there are ladies present - what the butt? Lady Luck's backstory ties her into all of the houses, even if it's a stretch in some cases (I highly doubt they came up with Lady Luck before they came up with the idea to do a Poe house..), but she's apparently not tied into any of the scarezones at all, which I think is a copout, but it's a copout I'm totally willing to overlook. However, I am not willing to overlook Lady Luck's backstory not intersecting with Lady Luck's scarezone, which contains Lady Luck, fifty times. It was like when John Malkovich climbed into his own brain . . . . . "Malkovich Malkovich?" "Malkovich!" "Oooo! Malkoviiichh!"

I feel like I'm taking Crazy Pills - it seemed to me like there were two costumes here: a scareactor on stilts wearing a silly bird costume and a scareactor not on stilts wearing a silly bird costume. The stilted ones were every third set piece, and they would flap their wings every few seconds. The non-stilted ones came out from behind every other set piece. And that was it. I kept thinking Aquaman:superheroes::Grown Evil:scarezone .... I went through it twice and it was even sillier the second time. But I still think I must've missed something. Right?